Government to evacuate Rwandans from S. Sudan

{Rwandan peacekeepers under the UN Mission to South Sudan watch over civilians under their guard in South Sudan last week. }

Speaking to the New times Parfait Gahamanyi, the director-general of Diaspora Directorate at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Rwandans who wish for evacuation will be helped.

The government is the process of identifying Rwandans living in South Sudan for possible evacuation, following insecurity accruing from clashes in the world’s youngest nation for the past week.

Hundreds have since last week been killed in the fighting between factions within the armed forces, with one group allied to President Salva Kiir, while the other is said to be loyal to former vice president Riek Machar.

The factions are said to be bent on ethnic lines between the Dinka, the largest ethnic group, and the Nuer, the second largest to which Machar belongs.

Speaking to The New Times yesterday, the Director General of the Diaspora Directorate in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Parfait Gahamanyi, said government is currently working out ways of evacuating Rwandans from South Sudan although the process may take some days.

“First, we need to identify all Rwandans and their locations, and then we need to draw a final list of those willing to return, put them in one place and then evacuate them. We are hoping to have the exact figures and location of all Rwandans by tomorrow (today),” said Gahamanyi.

Currently, Rwandans in South Sudan are estimated to be 500 but government will evacuate those willing to return since most are there on personal businesses.

This number is exclusive of Rwandan peacekeepers, who are part of the UN Mission in South Sudan.

Rwanda maintains more than 850 peacekeepers in the country.